Investors 'Entrenched' in Accessssing Money Through Tech, Study Finds: Tech Roundup

What You Need to Know

58% of Americans said financial apps are important to achieving their financial goals, according to a new Envestnet study.
Docupace announced the next phase of its strategic integration with Envestnet, further streamlining and digitizing the process for opening managed accounts.
Software-as-a-Service firm FMG is buying Vestorly, a firm specializing in artificial intelligence-driven content curation for wealth managers.

U.S. investors are increasingly “entrenched in accessing money through technology at their fingertips,” Envestnet found in its first national study, ”The Intelligent Financial Life: The Unexpected Intersection Between Technology, Clarity, and the Human Connection.”

“Americans are increasingly viewing money as something to be engaged with, managed, invested and understood with the assistance of technology,” the company explained.

According to the study, 58% of Americans said financial apps, including investment apps, money management apps and banking apps, are important to achieving their financial goals. That number rose to 76% when looking at Americans who currently work with a financial advisor, Envestnet said.

The study, done in conjunction with The Center for Generational Kinetics, included 2,158 U.S. participants 25-65 years of age. That included 1,038 U.S. participants representing the general population, and 1,120 U.S. participants with an annual household income or household net worth of $100,000 or more.

The sample was weighted to the 2020 U.S. Census for age, gender, geography and ethnicity. The study was conducted online from Dec. 13-Jan. 11.

Docupace-Envestnet Integration Enhanced

Docupace on Wednesday announced the next phase of its strategic integration with Envestnet, further streamlining and digitizing the process for opening managed advisory accounts.

Over the last year, the Product Organization at Docupace has worked to enable its legacy system to utilize the application programming interfaces available through Envestnet. The APIs allow Docupace to customize the advisor, client and back-office experiences related to proposal and account opening workflows, it said.

The “deep, data-rich integration” includes a real-time data exchange between the platforms, along with “several back-and front-office enhancements, to deliver a streamlined experience to clients, advisors, and home office professionals which eliminates duplicate data entry, and creates a single-sign-on (SSO) experience for accessing and managing one or multiple accounts,” according to Docupace.

Riskalyze Appoints Three Executives

Riskalyze made two new executive hires and promoted a veteran employee, it said Tuesday.

The new executive team members are Craig Clark as the firm’s first chief marketing officer, Josh Gray in the role of CTO and Riskalyze veteran Justin Boatman as chief product officer.

In his role as CMO, Clark will lead the team responsible for all marketing activities while also developing its brand positioning and strategic value to the marketplace. Before joining Riskalyze, Clark was CMO of PDFTron Systems, which was acquired by Thoma Bravo.

FMG Takes AI Leadership Position

Software-as-a-Service company FMG is buying Vestorly, a firm specializing in artificial intelligence-driven content curation for wealth management firms.

As part of the agreement, FMG will acquire Vestorly’s client base, reinforcing its leading market share position, FMG said. It is the firm’s seventh acquisition in six years and “represents a continuation of FMG’s expansion strategy,” it said. Financial terms of the transaction weren’t disclosed.

Vestorly’s content management system uses AI to curate personalized content to help financial professionals increase audience engagement.

FMG and Vestorly are looking to improve the scalability of personalization available to financial professionals by augmenting FMG’s all-in-one solution to include more AI-driven products and features across multiple marketing channels, they said.

SEI Launches Growth Lab

SEI on Wednesday announced the launch of Growth Lab, a practice management hub that it said features tools and extensive resources that help independent advisors deliver more value — and a complete experience — for their clients.

Growth Lab now focuses on four central practice management themes: foundations for growth, lead generation, opportunity conversion and scaling with technology.

The digital hub was designed as an on-demand experience for advisors, with actionable tools and video instruction that SEI said enable advisors to “seamlessly implement ideas into their practice.”